Jennings is right. Even if it's not commercials or something everyone sees, you can make more through appearances, etc. in glamour markets.

But did LeBron really add sponsors? Market size aside, I thought The Decision took a pretty good hatchet to his Madison Avenue appeal. The only times I can remember seeing him on commercials this season were "What Should I do?" and his putrid State Farm ad. I must have missed something. Is he doing that well locally in Miami?

Last edited by Kingpin74 on Tue May 17, 2011 5:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.

"Well then I guess there's only one thing left to do...win the whole, f***in', thing."- Jake Taylor

IOW: the celeb types are always going to go where they want, no matter what. Meet Melo, who is the worst of them all.

The KD’s and CP3’s are going to do whatever they have to do to win.

The rest is filler.

That is why keeping the ONE bird rights guy under a cap smaller than the cap now (I mean Christ, the CAP was $60MM last year, not even the luxury tax) creates a huge obstacle in building a winner.

More mid-market teams are playoff contenders now than have been in ages. That said the minute this goes into effect OKC and Memphis and all the other teams with young talent are going to have to break up their cores. OKC is going to get DESTROYED by this and they built that team the right and smart way every step of the way. Same with Portland.

If they do something like remove the Franchise guy from the cap figure it will help.

Amare would have stayed in Phoenix for the big money by the way, but his success and growth in NYC is undeniable.

I genuinely believe you have to strike a balance between the hard and soft caps. Going this far toward the hard cap is sheer lunacy and the only change from the $45MM figure in this second proposal from the owners was to phase it in over two years.

You think they get the lower hard cap and non-guaranteed deals? I have my doubts and it probably is some compromise. In a vacuum I agree as you lower team provided salary other income sources become more attractive percentage wise causing a material difference. There is no debating that mathematical proof.

Where I differ is that I don't think it effects the players who will see that material amount of endorsement money. Amare would still be in Phoenix because they would use the "franchise", they are going to make it that strong right, or whats the point.

Why aren't they just tweeking the Bird Rights, tweeking the revenue sharing, and killing some of the exceptions to make it a slighly harder soft cap (probably the end compromise). Every aspect of this owner proposal is retarded. Retarded beyond this little semantics debate. Wonder if this is even in the players negotiation zone of possible agreement.

"When a man with money meets a man with experience, the man with experience leaves with money and the man with money leaves with experience."

Kingpin74 wrote:Jennings is right. Even if it's not commercials or something everyone sees, you can make more through appearances, etc. in glamour markets.

But did LeBron really add sponsors? Market size aside, I thought The Decision took a pretty good hatchet to his Madison Avenue appeal. The only times I can remember seeing him on commercials this season were "What Should I do?" and his putrid State Farm ad. Is he doing that well locally in Miami?

The Decision hurt his Q rating but he still draws eyes. He draws a shit ton of eyes. The guy has had 700K cameras following him since The Decision all day every day.

e0y2e3 wrote:More mid-market teams are playoff contenders now than have been in ages. That said the minute this goes into effect OKC and Memphis and all the other teams with young talent are going to have to break up their cores. OKC is going to get DESTROYED by this and they built that team the right and smart way every step of the way. Same with Portland.

Bible right there. Make no mistake I don't advocate Gilbert's idea, or this owners' proposal. I was just arguing a tangent point. If the NBA allows ^ to happen by having a HARD HARD cap they are no better then the NFL.

Fuck the NFL and the complexity and FAKENESS of their contract terms. Allow the soft cap with less focus on player movement from team-to-team (MLE's, TPE's, S&T's and BAE's), and more focused on maintaining your well drafted/constructed teams/players. You'll never stop the Melo's and Sooperteam omegas, just make it harder and harder. The obviously gamed this CBA towards the end due to the complexity of the exceptions.

"When a man with money meets a man with experience, the man with experience leaves with money and the man with money leaves with experience."

^Heard. Indivdual components/skill level of 5 vs 22. Want to see good player selection rewarded, without the constant mechinations lack of continuity a true hard cap forces. Does Pittspuke keep Holmes all other things being equal? Too many NFL moves are forced, beef up player retention, more loyalty/longevity for the fanbase.

"When a man with money meets a man with experience, the man with experience leaves with money and the man with money leaves with experience."

e0y2e3 wrote:IOW: the celeb types are always going to go where they want, no matter what. Meet Melo, who is the worst of them all.

The KD’s and CP3’s are going to do whatever they have to do to win.

You're not seeing how this is interconnected? I'll channel my inner pup and say that Lebron and Melo figured out what they had to do to win.

More mid-market teams are playoff contenders now than have been in ages. That said the minute this goes into effect OKC and Memphis and all the other teams with young talent are going to have to break up their cores. OKC is going to get DESTROYED by this and they built that team the right and smart way every step of the way. Same with Portland.

Miami has two and a half superstars, zilch elsewhere, and a coach that can't get the offense out of a half-court iso set and they have as good a chance of winning the title as anyone else in the conference finals. Give them an offseason or two to fill in the supporting cast and a coach that can play to their strengths, and meanwhile New York is doing the same around Melo and Amare. Guess what happens to OKC, Portland, and Memphis's core once they discover their new role is to play the Glide Blazers and Mailman Stockton Jazz to the Superfriends of the East.

The NBA is right around there right now and there are franchises pleading poverty. The NHL is closer to the NFL than the NBA, its easier to market your non-superstar team when your seasonal success doesn't completely rest on superstars.

Amare would have stayed in Phoenix for the big money by the way, but his success and growth in NYC is undeniable.

And I'm sure the younger players aren't learning anything from this.

I genuinely believe you have to strike a balance between the hard and soft caps. Going this far toward the hard cap is sheer lunacy and the only change from the $45MM figure in this second proposal from the owners was to phase it in over two years.

By your own arguments, the mid-markets are still fucked.

"The fucking Who...... If I want to watch old people run around ill go set fire to a nursing home." - CDT

Yes, two of the three youngest teams in the playoffs (the other was Indy) are mid-market teams, haven’t even started to touch their upside and they are fucked because Miami is going to add more Vet min players and New York (who is capped out beyond capped out) is magically going to find role players. You do realize that getting rid of the MLE fucks those teams completely? Right? Or wait, are they going to trade Joel Anthony and Bibby for a real player?

You’ve just gone fucking insane.

Can’t even enjoy the rise of a great run from mid-markets in the NBA. I return to LBJ butt fucking you has turned you into a bitter lunatic.

And yeah, KD and CP3 are JUST like LBJ and Melo. You’ve got me….

Fucking Christ man, just stop.

You hate the sport and want to turn it into the NFL when that is impossible. Great. We get it, move on.

If LBJ was doing what he thought he needed to do to win he would have gone to Chicago.

Melo never mentioned winning in his trade demands, he’s a prima donna that married one and just wanted to be in NYC.

You want a Kleenex?

I’m done logically laying out why you have to find a middle ground between a ridiculously set up hard cap and a soft cap.

And geezes fucking Christ you are going to talk about franchises crying poverty because of the salary cap? Revenue sharing and the salary cap staying where it is changes the entire financial landscape, as I dare you to look at how far over the cap teams are right now.

I’m out, go back to sitting in your box pouting about how OKC can never win a title.

Kingpin74 wrote:Jennings is right. Even if it's not commercials or something everyone sees, you can make more through appearances, etc. in glamour markets.

But did LeBron really add sponsors? Market size aside, I thought The Decision took a pretty good hatchet to his Madison Avenue appeal. The only times I can remember seeing him on commercials this season were "What Should I do?" and his putrid State Farm ad. I must have missed something. Is he doing that well locally in Miami?

Larry Coon:Right now the owners are asking for a $45 million hard cap, but of course in any negotiation both sides start out asking for the moon and the stars, and slowly work their way somewhere in the middle. In the end, I think we'll end up with a cap that's "harder," but not a true hard cap (i.e., a cap with zero exceptions).

The league also appears to recognize that the superstar players deserve to make the lion's share of the money, and appear to be trying to shape some of the rules (such as their version of a franchise tag) to ensure that these players are taken care of.

"When a man with money meets a man with experience, the man with experience leaves with money and the man with money leaves with experience."

Kingpin74 wrote:But did LeBron really add sponsors? Market size aside, I thought The Decision took a pretty good hatchet to his Madison Avenue appeal. The only times I can remember seeing him on commercials this season were "What Should I do?" and his putrid State Farm ad. I must have missed something. Is he doing that well locally in Miami?

According to a Wall Street Journal study published just before the James-driven free-agent frenzy began last July, metrics that measure a player's monetary worth by comparing his salary to his impact on success dictated that Curry should have owed the Knicks $1.3 million. But the cream of the NBA crop are delivering bang for their bucks -- no one more so than James.

Based on basketball alone, the report stated that James should have been paid approximately $43 million annually based on his last season in Cleveland. Wade was valued at $29.4 million for 2009-10, and Bosh at $20.5 million.

As it was, all three players took less than the maximum salary allowed in order to play together, with James and Bosh earning $14.5 million in the first year of their six-year deals while Wade came in at $14.2. And that was before the business side was even taken into account.

The impact began last summer, when season-ticket sales in cities that were on James' possible list of free-agent destinations saw significant spikes despite the uncertainty about where he would eventually land. The "Heatles," as James dubbed the hoops rock stars during the season, led the league in crowds on the road (an average of 19,447) while captivating the masses in record-breaking numbers on local and national television all season long.

...

One industry source estimates that James and Wade will drive approximately $800 million in retail sales (jerseys, posters etc.) this season.

Kingpin74 wrote:But did LeBron really add sponsors? Market size aside, I thought The Decision took a pretty good hatchet to his Madison Avenue appeal. The only times I can remember seeing him on commercials this season were "What Should I do?" and his putrid State Farm ad. I must have missed something. Is he doing that well locally in Miami?

According to a Wall Street Journal study published just before the James-driven free-agent frenzy began last July, metrics that measure a player's monetary worth by comparing his salary to his impact on success dictated that Curry should have owed the Knicks $1.3 million. But the cream of the NBA crop are delivering bang for their bucks -- no one more so than James.

Based on basketball alone, the report stated that James should have been paid approximately $43 million annually based on his last season in Cleveland. Wade was valued at $29.4 million for 2009-10, and Bosh at $20.5 million.

As it was, all three players took less than the maximum salary allowed in order to play together, with James and Bosh earning $14.5 million in the first year of their six-year deals while Wade came in at $14.2. And that was before the business side was even taken into account.

The impact began last summer, when season-ticket sales in cities that were on James' possible list of free-agent destinations saw significant spikes despite the uncertainty about where he would eventually land. The "Heatles," as James dubbed the hoops rock stars during the season, led the league in crowds on the road (an average of 19,447) while captivating the masses in record-breaking numbers on local and national television all season long.

...

One industry source estimates that James and Wade will drive approximately $800 million in retail sales (jerseys, posters etc.) this season.

And that's not even getting into his personal stuff, just his impact on league finances with Wade

Udonis Haslem mentioned in an interview on the LeBatard show, that Lebron and Wade said that they would include him in some of their endorsement deals - to make up for the money lost by signing back with them. Pretyy much inferred that endorsement $ was "growing on trees," not only cause of their star power, but because of the attraction of the team as a whole.

e0y2e3 wrote:NBA had meetings yesterday and the negotiations were reportedly productive and fluid.

Two days of meetings scheduled for June 7-8.

Yesterday was productive enough Hunter backed down from his “99.9% stoppage” remark

Interesting. Put that together with how the playoffs have been going, and then this quote from Dwight Howard while putting down the rumor he was going to extend his contract with the Magic:

"I'm not trying to run behind nobody like Shaq or be behind someone else," Howard said, referencing Shaquille O'Neal's decision to leave Orlando after the 1995-96 season and join with Kobe Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers.

"I want to start my own path and I want people to follow my path and not just follow somebody else's path."

Hmm. And then there's this:

One industry source estimates that James and Wade will drive approximately $800 million in retail sales (jerseys, posters etc.) this season.

How much of that money is getting back to Howard, or Kevin Durant, or Derrick Rose, or Chris Paul?

All in all, very interesting.

"The fucking Who...... If I want to watch old people run around ill go set fire to a nursing home." - CDT

One of the biggest points about the meetings going better made by the union reps (all in a Yahoo article, Spears not Woj) was that the bigger markets seemed to be more openly approaching the revenue sharing angle. Which is interesting when LA, Miami, Dallas and Cleveland were the owners there and LA was also repped.

At the renewal deadline in March, they offered like $200 in Continental Airlines gift certificates or an ipod or something like that. In other words, nowhere close to the cash I'll save cherrypicking tickets to my 30 or so games on Flash Seats or Stub Hub. I offered to renew if they gave me court club access or significant concession stand coupons ($1-$2K in ticket face value but probably less than a quarter of that in real dollars to them) but they said no way. So I bailed on the season tix. They've only dropped prices about 9% from the LeBron era, unacceptable.

"Well then I guess there's only one thing left to do...win the whole, f***in', thing."- Jake Taylor

At the renewal deadline in March, they offered like $200 in Continental Airlines gift certificates or an ipod or something like that. In other words, nowhere close to the cash I'll save cherrypicking tickets to my 30 or so games on Flash Seats or Stub Hub. I offered to renew if they gave me court club access or significant concession stand coupons ($1-$2K in ticket face value but probably less than a quarter of that in real dollars to them) but they said no way. So I bailed on the season tix. They've only dropped prices about 9% from the LeBron era, unacceptable.

The secondary market for tickets online has changed the game with the way teams have to look at season ticket holders, for the reasons Kingpin mentioned, and others.

Why pay for 41 games, plus full price for exhibition games, when you can wait till the last second and buy tickets for less than face online, and pick the games you want to go to as your schedule changes?

Thing with the Cavs though - Gilbert also owns Flash Seats. And makes 20% from the seller on those transactions. So he's less inclined to give a shit.

Thing is now though, as a sports franchise, you have to do a lot more to provide value for your season ticket holders outside of the tickets themselves. The Columbus Blue Jackets really started to face this dilemma a couple years ago. They did a great job last season doing new things for season ticket holders. Meet and greets and autographs sessions with the players, season ticket holder events, deeper discounts on ticket, parking and food vouchers, and priority ticket access for other events at Nationwide Arena.

TMLP has done none of that. We have season tickets at my bank. There are next to no value addeds.

Again, owning Flash Seats gives him more leverage, and it was a smart play from the business side of things. TMLP is no dummy. And winning the Flash Seats v. Ticketmaster lawsuit was huge for him.

"It's like dating a woman who hates you so much she will never break up with you, even if you burn down the house every single autumn." ~ Chuck Klosterman on Browns fans relationship with the Browns

The secondary market for tickets online has changed the game with the way teams have to look at season ticket holders, for the reasons Kingpin mentioned, and others.

Why pay for 41 games, plus full price for exhibition games, when you can wait till the last second and buy tickets for less than face online, and pick the games you want to go to as your schedule changes?

Thing with the Cavs though - Gilbert also owns Flash Seats. And makes 20% from the seller on those transactions. So he's less inclined to give a shit.

Thing is now though, as a sports franchise, you have to do a lot more to provide value for your season ticket holders outside of the tickets themselves. The Columbus Blue Jackets really started to face this dilemma a couple years ago. They did a great job last season doing new things for season ticket holders. Meet and greets and autographs sessions with the players, season ticket holder events, deeper discounts on ticket, parking and food vouchers, and priority ticket access for other events at Nationwide Arena.

TMLP has done none of that. We have season tickets at my bank. There are next to no value addeds.

Again, owning Flash Seats gives him more leverage, and it was a smart play from the business side of things. TMLP is no dummy. And winning the Flash Seats v. Ticketmaster lawsuit was huge for him.

Re: the Blue Jackets, absolutely. That's what you have to do these days. The Tribe offered a free suite for a game, 2 free club seats to a game, a 20% team shop discount, a 20 plus % discount from single game pricing, and they let you exchange unused tickets for future tickets depending on availability. And even with all that, StubHub still could come out cheaper over 81 games (albeit with much more work involved).

Re: Gilbert owning Flash Seats, that's true but I'd have to think it would cannibalize him a little. And wouldn't you want to do as much as possible to get season ticket holders in the building buying food, booze, merchandise, etc.? I'm as die hard as it gets but I'm sure 7-8 games that I'd otherwise attend with season tickets will fall by the wayside now that I gave them up.

"Well then I guess there's only one thing left to do...win the whole, f***in', thing."- Jake Taylor

Stern can fuck himself. He'll go from being a pseudo hero in terms of what he did (even with this last lockout and it's load of shit) to the anti-christ in my mind. To kill a part of a season for parity and to save the small market and then LET A SMALL MARKET KEEP IT'S TEAM BECAUSE IT GAVE MONEY BACK TO THE BIG MARKETS?!?!

And if I ever, ever, ever read a load of bullshit anywhere on the internet about Dan Gilbert leading the charge to save the world via parity when anyone with an IQ over six can smell a money grab again my head will explode.

Stern can fuck himself. He'll go from being a pseudo hero in terms of what he did (even with this last lockout and it's load of shit) to the anti-christ in my mind. To kill a part of a season for parity and to save the small market and then LET A SMALL MARKET KEEP IT'S TEAM BECAUSE IT GAVE MONEY BACK TO THE BIG MARKETS?!?!